What they do highlights the 3 tiered elite status of football

1st Tier

Top 6 clubs who spend ridiculous amounts of money on players and wages (because the champions league money which the rest of the prem don't get allows them to asset strip the rest of the prem)

2nd Tier

10-15 Clubs safety clubs who float in the prem, sometimes spending money, sometimes surviving seasons happy to be in the prem

3rd Tier

Clubs who know they can't compete budget and fan base wise. Clubs who have players who can't win matches in the premier league, but the same players can comfortably win promotion in the champs

Which leaves the heavy gap from the 3rd tier to the championship. 3rd tier are basically 1st tier premier league clubs of the championship. Everything that's terrible about Burnley's ?20m squad playing a ?400m Manchester Utd team, becomes the very same thing when recently relegated Newcastle take their ?100m squad away to Huddersfield

Burnley, Norwich, Wigan, Wolves, Reading etc... All have the cushion of 4 years worth of revenue that other clubs don't get.

That has created 2 types of elitism in football. Premier League champions league money making 6 major clubs dominant, and around 8-10 clubs yo yo'ing on premiership parachute payments playing a major domination on the rest of the football league

I don't really have a conclusion, I just know all the above isn't very healthy. Why? Because in the end, all the elite clubs will want better standards for their massive squads. Maybe even championship clubs too. It's possible the 3 tiered elite will want to register B-teams sometime soon, and even renovate their fancy training complexes to having 10-15000 seperate premises to play these games. That way reserve leagues can be scrapped. Then non 3 tiered clubs will have less youth development and football could suffer even further. Until you only have 3 divisions of teams in professional football.

75 teams comprising of 20 premier league teams, 10 tier 3 clubs on parachute money yo yoing. 10 b teams in the second and 3rd tier, leaving 35 other clubs nationwide who just exist because they are a collective of a catchment area where old clubs went out of business (eg Bury, Oldham + Rochdale + Bolton reform as North Lancashire Lions)

Who knows, just a thought innit

Posted By: pants, Sep 29, 12:33:35